Will EOS Overtake Ethereum?

21.12.2018

Ethereum is the most popular platform for creating and distributing smart contracts. Nevertheless, there are quite a few people (among both developers and users) who are not satisfied with this solution.

The reasons for this dissatisfaction are substantial. It takes a lot of time to make a transaction, the gas fees are high, and this platform is almost not scalable at all. So, every time there is a new Ethereum alternative appearing on the horizon, it is always carefully analyzed in the hopes of it becoming the potential replacement for the current leader, Ethereum.

EOS is one such alternative. This platform for smart contracts was launched by its Chinese developers at the end of January 2018. Many myths already surround the platform. For instance, many cryptoenthusiasts are asking themselves questions like: “Is EOS the Ethereum killer?” Can EOS overtake Ethereum? If you want to find out, keep reading and I’ll tell you!

EOS Development: Everything You Need to Know

The news about EOS development spread around the world in June 2017. This is when the five-day pre-sale of 200 million tokens worth $1 billion started.

ICO lasted for a year (it finished not so long ago, at the beginning of June 2018). It raised more than $4.2 billion, thus becoming the most successful ICO in history.

What is interesting, even though the whitepaper wasn’t that detailed (according to experienced investors), this platform still raised a huge amount of money, and future token owners were determined to get as many tokens as possible, at any cost.

How did EOS developers manage to achieve such results? It’s often considered to be the well-thought-out marketing campaign that made this happen. The center element of that campaign was the abbreviation EOS itself – it stands for Ethereum On Steroids.

As you can see, EOS developers were striving to create something that would be superior to Ethereum based on every indicator crucial for users. Is EOS better than Ethereum? You can find out about this below.

EOS vs Ethereum: Who Will Win?

We have prepared the EOS and Ethereum comparison based on a set of criteria that will help us determine the winner, including:

Transaction fees;

Transaction per second;

Consensus type;

Virtual machine support;

Supported programming languages;

Smart contract interaction model;

Fixing mistakes;

Block formation speed;

Network governance;

Inflation

Transaction Fees

Ethereum transaction fees allow not only motivating miners to carry on their main duty (i.e., mining coins) but also protecting the network from DDoS attacks. Gas is the nominal transaction fee.

As for EOS, transactions on this network are free, and there’s no gas. In order to protect the platform from spam and attacks, EOS uses another mechanism – bandwidth distribution between token owners in proportion to their stakes. Therefore, if EOS users want to increase the bandwidth, they just need to acquire more tokens.

Transactions per Second

Ethereum allows processing up to 15 transactions per second. EOS, in its turn, is an infinitely scalable solution, and the number of transactions per second can amount to several million.

Moreover, to scale Ethereum-based solutions, you need to increase the capacity of your equipment. With EOS, the scaling process is more flexible and doesn’t require huge equipment capacities thanks to bandwidth distribution.

Consensus Type

Ethereum has chosen two consensus types for its operations: Proof of Work (currently used) and Proof of Stake (which the platform is planning to switch to in the nearest future). This may make you doubt the security of Ethereum – for instance, hackers could take over the necessary number of hash capacities.

As for EOS, things are better in this case – it uses Delegated Proof of Stake. So, in order to approve a new transaction or make changes to the chain, token owners need to vote for so-called block producers. There are 21 of these block producers, and every one is chosen by the popular vote.

Virtual Machine Support

Ethereum is based on its own Ethereum Virtual Machine, and EOS uses the open-source WebAssembly. Open-source solutions are considered to be better when it comes to versatility. So, we can consider EOS the winner for this criterion.

Supported Programming Languages

The main development language on Ethereum is Solidity, which was created specifically for developing smart contracts (even though any EVM-compatible language will work for developers). EOS supports Rust and C++, as well as any other languages that can be compiled in WebAssembly.

Solidity is considered to be easy to learn, although its application is a lot narrower than in the cases of Rust and C++. So, Ethereum wins, at least for this comparison criterion (although it is very subjective, obviously).

Smart Contracts Interaction Model

Unlike Ethereum, EOS requires special permissions to send a transaction. This feature provides an additional level of security for transactions. If you are still wondering, “How can EOS overtake Ethereum?”, this is one more clear sign for you.

Fixing Mistakes

In order to fix a mistake in a block on Ethereum, you will need to fork. As for EOS, all the changes are made after the approval of block producers who are chosen by popular vote among token owners.

Block Formation Speed

Here, it is clear EOS will kill Ethereum: two blocks per second against 0.03 blocks per second. The conclusion is obvious – EOS is the best choice.

Network Governance

The management of the Ethereum blockchain is called offchain. As for EOS, this process is implemented within the network, i.e. onchain, by estimating the number of votes of all token owners. So, basically, users send a transaction with their vote to determine their choice in terms of adding a new block or making changes to already existing blocks.

Inflation

Both on Ethereum and EOS, tokens are created to include their inflation. On EOS, the inflation rate is fixed at five percent in the documentation. In the case with Ethereum, there is also inflation, but its creator, Vitalik Buterin, is planning to get rid of it. Therefore, ETH is less prone to volatility than EOS. Ethereum wins!

Conclusion

So, will EOS overtake Ethereum? As we can see from the results of the EOS vs Ethereum standoff, the first option is a new stage in the evolution of smart contract platforms. This is why it makes perfect sense that EOS will overtake Ethereum, just like USB flash drives overtook CD-Rs.

If you have an idea involving blockchain and smart contracts in mind and you are looking for developers to make it a reality, reach out to us. Our team specializes in building such software, so we can offer you the most cost-effective, scalable and high-performance solution possible that will have the potential to corner its niche.